Category: In the News

Mavs set to answer rest or rust question

By DOUGLAS PILS
dpils@express-news.net

The Dallas Mavericks seek to solve a never-ending debate Tuesday in the Western Conference finals.

Tipping off against the Oklahoma City Thunder or Memphis Grizzlies, it will have been 10 days since the Mavericks swept the two-time defending champion Lakers.

The riddle: Is it better to rest, or did Dallas lose valuable momentum only a six-game playoff winning streak can provide?

Pundits belabor the question. Players and coaches deflect it. Only the games answer it.

Since the NBA made the conference semifinals a best-of-7 test of wills in 1968, 18 teams have reached the conference or NBA Finals with a sweep while their next opponent fought to close out a six- or seven-game series.

The sweepers are 10-8 in the following series, and eight won NBA titles. However, the sweepers have lost the past three.

Last year, the Magic blanked the Hawks only to fall to the Celtics, who took six games to beat the Cavaliers.

In 2009, the Cavs routed the Hawks before losing to the Magic, who battled seven games with Boston.

In 2005, the Heat swept the Wizards, then lost in seven to the Pistons, who had a six-game win over Cleveland.

The last conference semis sweeper to advance past a team that faced a challenge was the 2003 Nets, who beat the Pistons after they had survived the 76ers in six.

Then the Spurs beat the Nets in the NBA Finals.

The Spurs are the most recent of the 10 winners to claim the title. In 1999, they swept the Lakers, then the Blazers, who had a six-game series with the Jazz, before hoisting their first Larry O’Brien Trophy.

As for the riddle, Dallas has nine players with 10 or more years in the league, so the rest theory seems to fit.

But consider how Dallas knocked out Los Angeles. It made 20 of 32 3-pointers in Game 4. Does a team smoking the nets at that rate really want rest? The chances of Dallas coming back anywhere near that hot seem remote.

Two characteristics of the eight teams who lost the next round and the two winners who failed to win the title are lack of championship experience and/or running into a team of destiny.

Aside from the four sweepers noted above who failed to win it all, the other six are the 1978 and 1985 76ers, the 1968 and 1989 Lakers, the 1996 SuperSonics and the 1998 Jazz.

Philadelphia in 1985 and L.A. in 1989 weren’t far removed from titles, but they fell to the Celtics, who were in the middle of four straight Finals, and Chuck Daly’s Pistons, respectively.

Point guard Jason Kidd, a 17-year pro and member of the 2003 Nets, is the closest thing Dallas has to championship experience, but it won’t face a team that has any in the Western finals.

That leaves the destiny part of the equation. We won’t know until later if the Thunder or Grizzlies fit the notion, but teams usually don’t leap from No. 4 or No. 8 seeds to titles.

Destiny could be Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki, 32, trying to erase his name off the list of great players without a title.

Hakeem Olajuwon was 31 when he got his first. Kevin Garnett was 31.

However, it’s more likely that the team of destiny — the one with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — will be waiting in the Finals, making the riddle’s solution pointless.

Mavs’ haymakers KO Lakers’ reign

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

DALLAS — The end of an era was sudden and painful for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Crushed by a fusillade of 3-pointers by Dallas Mavericks reserves Jason Terry and Peja Stojakovic, the two-time defending NBA champion Lakers on Sunday suffered the second-worst playoff loss in their long history, a 122-86 humiliation that swept them out of the Western Conference semifinals.

As a result, the Mavericks are headed to the Western Conference finals for the fourth time in franchise history, and Lakers Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson is headed to retirement with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Jackson’s teams have won 11 NBA titles, but never in his 20 seasons on NBA benches had one of them been swept from a playoff series.

Before Jackson confirmed his intent to retire during his postgame remarks, he called the Mavericks’ performance the best game any team had ever played against one of his teams in a playoff situation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team play to that level in a series in a game like they played this afternoon,” he said. “They were terrific.”

What the Mavericks did best was shoot from long range. Terry missed only one of the 10 3-pointers he launched and scored a game-high 32 points.

Recalling his 32-point performance that led the Mavericks to a Game 1 victory in the 2006 NBA Finals, Terry hedged about calling his uncanny shooting the best of his playoff life. He clearly understood its impact.

? “For the magnitude of this game, to close those guys out, yes, it was a great game,” he said, “so it goes down as one of them. And I’m very thankful that I had the hot hand tonight.”

Stojakovic, the veteran forward the Mavericks signed as a free agent after the Toronto Raptors released him in February, was even more accurate from 3-point range, making all six of his long-distance shots. He scored 21 points.

The Mavericks made 11 3-pointers in the first half, 20 for the game — both numbers matching single-game NBA playoff records.

Amazingly, Dallas’ season scoring leader Dirk Nowitzki attempted, and made, only one 3-pointer. For the first time in one of the Mavericks’ eight playoff victories this spring, he was not his team’s top scorer. He scored only 17 points, trailing Terry, Stojakovic and another reserve, point guard J.J. Barea, who finished with 22 points.

The Lakers had no answer for the Mavericks at either end of the court. Former NBA Most Valuable Player Kobe Bryant, a two-time Finals MVP, scored 13 first-quarter points but only four thereafter. He made six of his first eight shots, then missed nine of his next 10. The game’s most feared closer had only two points in the second half.

To Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, his team’s defensive excellence matched the 3-point shooting he called breathtaking.

“You hold this (Lakers) team under 40 percent, it means you’re moving your feet, you’re guarding, and you’re rebounding,” he said. “That fueled a lot of the good things that happened for us offensively.”

By game’s end, Jackson was embarrassed by the lack of composure of center Andrew Bynum and forward Lamar Odom. Both were thrown out of the game — Odom for committing a category-2 flagrant foul on Nowitzki; Bynum for a flagrant-2 on Barea, a foot shorter but far more impactful on a Mother’s Day afternoon.

“I wasn’t happy with the way our players exited the game, on Lamar’s and Andrew’s part,” Jackson said.

Jackson also accused some unnamed players of shrinking from the magnitude of the moment.

“Well, I felt there’s a couple of players who felt daunted by the energy of the game,” he said. “Their game was depressed. There were, personally, a couple of players who didn’t step into the performance that I’d like to see them step into.”

As a result, Jackson steps into retirement, an era ended with minimal resistance and maximum pain.

Memphis blog brother respects Spurs’ historic accomplishments

 Memphis blogger Chip Crain ofprovided some blog fodder earlier in the Memphis series when he ranked Marc Gasol over Tim Duncan and Mike Conley over Tony Parker in some of his positional analysis.

After the way the series played out, Crain’s analysis was spot-on. Even with the strong history from the two key players in the Spurs’ foundation, he was correct that their Memphis counterparts now are better. They certainly played that way in the series.

In his post-series analysis, Crain has some about the Spurs.  He praised Manu Ginobili, Gregg Popovich, Duncan and Parker, along with the Spurs’ organization. In the process, he almost proclaimed brisket as the equal of  the Memphis dry-rub version of barbecue.

But his most prescient comments came when he ended his commentary. It might be something for Spurs Nation to pause and reflect on as they get ready for a long off-season.

“The Spurs never gave up. They never acted immature. They held themselves to higher standard,” Crain wrote. “They showed the same class in defeat as they have shown in their victories in the past. I won’t lie and say I feel sad that the Spurs lost but I do feel honored to have seen such an excellent example of how true champions behave.

“This may one day be looked back on as the end of an era for the Spurs but I hope the way they handled themselves in both victory and defeat will be a lesson for the teams that come. Thank you San Antonio. You have shown our young team how to handle themselves in good times and bad. I can only hope that the Grizzlies handle themselves with the same class that the Spurs have done for the past decade.” 

Here are some other takes from my blog brothers after the end of the Spurs’ season.

  • Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell.com explains why he still would vote R.C. Buford as his NBA Executive of the Year, during the next several months. Varner also proclaims that the Spurs lost the Memphis series
  • Paul Garcia of Project Spurs.com provides a about the Spurs and after the Game 6 loss to Memphis.
  • Grego21 of Pounding the Rock.com relates that Zach Randolph’s domination of the Spurs was reminiscent of the kind of to the rest of the NBA.
  • Craig “Junior” Miller, a noted Spurs fan from way back  and a big-time radio host in Dallas, writes that he’s as Memphis did in the recent series.  
  • Tom Ziller of SB Nation.com details the reasons why the in recent seasons.
  • Secretchord53 of Spurs Dynasty.com relates how the last five minutes of Memphis’ Game 6 victory over the Spurs
  • SilverandblackDavis of Pounding the Rock.com gives us a detailed reflection of the Spurs’ past season, saying that surprising presents sometimes come arrived in .
  • J. Michael Falgoust of USA Today.com writes why the Grizzlies’ series victory over the Spurs .  
  • Paul Eide of Hoops Vibe.com doesn’t expect the Spurs to once the NBA resumes play next season.
  • Wayne Vore of Spurs Planet.com writes that the Spurs’ improbable Game 5 victory helpedto the Grizzlies.  
  • Scrappy-doo of Pounding the Rock.com opines that despite back-to-back championships, the Spurs were a .
  • Josh Guyer of Pounding the Rock.com provides the for the Spurs’ Game 6 loss to Memphis.
  • Alleyoop of Spurs Dynasty.com provides a .
  • The Pro Sports Exchange provides its post-season wrapup on the .